Many thought Dead Island 2 would never see the light of day, but it’s finally almost here. Developer Dambuster Studios has put out a new deep dive into the upcoming zombie RPG’s gameplay. As you’d probably expect, it’s full of fleshy baddies that your character will soon be ripping to pieces.
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Of particular note in this gameplay demo was a look at what the Dead Island 2 team calls the Flesh System. This is the game’s way of showing grotesque and realistic violence on the zombies you will be fighting. As you attack enemies in certain spots of their bodies, you will see their insides start to fall out. For example, stabbing a zombie in the side of the head could force their eyeball to pop out. It’s a way to add more visual weight to the bone-splintering, skin-tearing action.
The star of the show this time around is a new playable character named Dani. She is an Irish woman who is described as a “balanced character well suited to an agile style of combat.” While we didn’t see any particular special abilities she may have over the other characters, we did get a small snippet of what is called Fury Mode, where you are able to partly become a zombie and gain increased speed and strength to viciously take down enemies.
The video also shows off some of the special enemies you will encounter in Dead Island 2. The hulking Crusher appears to be a bigger version of Thugs and there was also a moment where we saw an exploding Suicider from the original game. A Boomer-like enemy also shot what might be acid at the player and a particularly freaky zombie had arm bones that were sharpened into blades. There were quite a few new threats.
Related: Dead Island 2 actually moves release date up instead of back, subverting fan expectations
There is a lot of content to dive into with this demo presentation, but we think the game did a good job of showing what you can expect. We enjoyed the first Dead Island, and after almost a decade of waiting for a sequel, we are ready to get back in on the action.
